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An abundance of hand-me-downs (and how we organize them)

September 10, 2015 by Rachel Zupke Leave a Comment

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Once every six months (for Serafina, 3 months for Caleb), I tackle the task of transitioning clothes through the dresser for our growing kiddos. It’s like going shopping thanks to incredibly generous friends further along in this parenting adventure than we are that consistently give us hand-me-down clothes and toys for both our son and daughter. While I buy shoes new, I have only bought a handful of clothing items for both kiddos. We’ve also been given clothes from other people (one of my sister’s coworkers, for example) that have given us a complete stash of clothes for a boy and a girl through 4T and kids 6, respectively.

Hand-me-downs are the best! I could not be more grateful considering how expensive clothing is and how quickly kiddos go through the different sizes!

We do, however, have finite space (don’t we all?) so the question begs, where do I put it all? Well, I don’t keep everything. I try to keep 1 bin per gender per size aaaand since I’m obsessed with teal, I convinced my hubby to let me buy the pretty ones from Target. We’re saving money by not buying clothes, right? :) Keeping clothes to one bin per gender per size is easier when the clothes are smaller and harder when the clothes are bigger: I have a newborn-6 month bin but 4T-5T share 3 bins. Since it’s hard to judge in which seasons they’ll hit certain sizes, I do keep at least a few of the hot/cold specific items (swim suits and winter jackets). Going through a new bag of hand-me-downs is like going shopping! I actually can’t stand shopping for myself (nothing ever fits, it takes too much time) or my kids (too stressful!) so this perfect especially since I get to do it in my living room. The clothes we don’t keep get donated to our local pregnancy resource center, where expectant moms can shop for free in exchange for attending parenting classes, or to other families through our local Buy Nothing community.

A peek at the process of transitioning hand-me-downs…the growing give-away pile is in the back upper left of this pic.

The OCD in me really comes out when it comes time to put things in the dresser. We have a small closet in the kids’ room for dresses and nice shirts and pants as well as a dresser with 6 spacious drawers. That means there are 3 drawers for our 9 month old and 3 for our 3 year old. Having any more than this is much more than we need. It also helps with the amount of laundry to ~~cram~~ put into the drawers as well as with the simplicity of finding clothes for my 3 year old (tips on that below). As for the method, I’ve found that it’s easiest to lay out the drawers on the guest bed and grab the new bin(s). Once sorted, if they don’t fit in the drawers, we don’t keep them, passing on the goodness.

Folding brings out my OCD...I love arranging things neatly and getting everything to fit just right. It's hard to get rid of things but also good to not hoard just because we've been given so much.

Folding brings out my OCD…I love arranging things neatly and getting everything to fit just right. It’s hard to get rid of things but also good for me to continually learn to not hoard especially as we’ve been given so much.

Lastly, our off-to-preschool daughter loves doing things herself (she’s been saying “I do it” since she was 18 months old). To both feed this desire for freedom but also add a layer of responsibility, I printed off little icons of children’s clothing, cut them out, and taped them to her drawers where each type of item is stored. She helps put her clothes away and also gets to pick them out each morning.

This helps our 3 year old pick out her clothing and help put her clothes away. Freedom and responsibility…win win for this mama! (While she’s not pictured, she wanted to lay out a few items for y’all to see…)

Hand-me-downs help our bottom line but they also give our kids an amazing array of clothes without the time required to do all that shopping. I’m grateful for both the money aspect and the time aspect…I’d much rather play dress up with a huge bin of clothes and pare it down to what we’ll actually wear than wade through racks at the store any day. I definitely have friends who prefer it the other way (and I’m extremely thankful they share their bounty with me!) so I know that how we do it as a family is not the only way. If you do benefit from hand-me-downs, do you have any additional tips for transitioning clothes from season to season? I’d love any input you might share!

~Rachel

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Get Outside!

July 20, 2014 by Rachel Zupke 1 Comment

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Maybe you know I like to hike…

We recently got back from our anniversary camping trip. While we used to go backpacking for our anniversary, having a nearly 2 year old kiddo and being pregnant, car camping with a day hike was a more feasible option! I thought it would be fun to dig back in the archives for this post I wrote over at Young Wife’s Guide last year about getting outside!

I want to encourage you to get outside with tips and reasons why you’re missing out on God’s amazing creation if you don’t go on a hike. So check it out…

And enjoy this throwback pic from last summer’s backpacking trip (yes, we backpacked with a 1 year old!):

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Prayers for New Babies

February 4, 2014 by Rachel Zupke Leave a Comment

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There are SO many babies coming into the world right now, at least among my circle of friends (IRL and otherwise). One of these friends, Em @ Primitive Roads, is a blogging friend who is such an insightful writer who writes about marriage, motherhood, and ministry (her husband is a youth pastor in Coeur d’Alene).

She and her husband Tim had a baby boy last week and in preparation for his arrival, she asked if anyone in our blogging group wanted to write a guest post so she could keep her blog going during these first few weeks of Baby James’ life. I happily said I would…below is a teaser…

Lord, we first want to thank you and praise You for little James Atticus! Thank you for giving his mama the strength to bring him safely into this world and for blessing his daddy to be just the right encourager for the delivery.

We also lift up James’ continual growth and development in this fourth trimester, the first 12 weeks of life during which so much adjustment takes place.

To read more, click on the image or click here.

P.S. I was honored to get to throw a baby shower in December for one of my best friends. As a favor, I made a set of bookmarks for all the attendees to take home with prayers for the new mom and dad as well as baby. Stay tuned for a post detailing how to do this on your own (or order them from my Etsy shop!).

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Five Minute Friday: See

January 9, 2014 by Rachel Zupke 8 Comments

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Hello and welcome to my first time at Five Minute Friday at my new home on the interwebs. I did this a few times before at my old “location” and thought I’d jump in today. Why not? :) Here are the rules: Lisa-Jo Baker gives us all a word and we only get 5 minutes to write about it. Then we all link up here and encourage the blogger who posted before us. That’s it!

Five Minute Friday: See

Start

I’m sitting on my kitchen floor looking at our daughter’s play kitchen which we designed to fit into our “big” kitchen. She’s got all the gizmos…a blender, a mixer, and even fake knives/cutting boards/fruit that velcro together so you can pretend to cut them apart.

I see the hinges for the oven door that doesn’t fit since we’ve painted it (gotta love being off by 1/8″) and the tiny ladle on the floor that didn’t get put away. And I don’t see the faucet, sink, and burners that we didn’t quite have ready for Christmas. Do you think she cares?

I also see a row of Christmas cards above her kitchen, filled with pictures of loved ones near and far who deemed us special enough to include in their yearly correspondence. I only hope I could see all of those people at least once this year.

But back to the kitchen…

I see years of play, pretend, and learning how to be a little baker, chef, and cleaner-upper. I see her teaching a future sibling how to make wonderful things in a kitchen, the wonderful things that make a house a home. I see her growing up. And I’m sad and excited all at the same time. I see the incompleteness of the kitchen and think of her incompleteness and how I have the responsibility to continually pay attention to details in craftsmanship and in parenting so that she turns out as beautifully as God has already made her.

Stop

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Check your speed – being content in every season

January 4, 2014 by Rachel Zupke 3 Comments

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Friends, I will admit that I am not always content. That being said, I’ve learned a lot – via experience and otherwise – about enjoying the speed at which we each walk through in life. When Ben and I were dating, I loved that time of getting to know one another. When we were engaged, I loved preparing for our wedding and marriage (even though it was CRAZY busy as I was a college athlete and student teacher while planning the wedding!). When we were married and kid-less, I loved focusing on our spousal relationship and pouring energy into the students we each got to teach. Then we became parents. And I love this too.

How can each of these be so wonderful? Because life has been easy-peasy and we’ve never run into problems? If you could see me spit out my green smoothie as I laugh at the absurdity of this, you’d understand that is most definitely not the case! Actually, it’s pretty opposite…

Each piece of my life’s puzzle – whether easy, difficult, exhilarating, disappointing, or somewhere in between – has been amazing because I focused on just that stage. Not the one ahead or behind, but what is right in front of me.

I often equate contentedness with a lack of worry. And it is no coincidence that hurry and worry rhyme. My all-time favorite basketball coach, John Wooden, is attributed as saying, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.” Life is always moving, but we do have some say regarding our urgency in moving from one stage to the next. Are you enjoying the time while being quick* or are you hurrying?

God has something to teach every one of us in each of our seasons – some faster than others – but all of us need to check our speed. Everyone’s speed in different phases of life is going to be different: I think of friends who got married and had their first child 10 months later versus us having Serafina days after our 4 year anniversary. Both options are great…unless you’re so focused on the next thing that you can’t enjoy/witness God’s work in the present.

There seems to have been a default speed for each stage of my life so far: dating, we were in the 30 mph range, fast enough to be moving toward engagement but slow enough to give ourselves the chance to get to know one another; our engagement was pedal-to-the-metal even though it was 9 months long because of all of the things going on during that time of our lives (both finishing college + I was student teaching and an NCAA athlete), our early marriage was one of those country roads that slows down to 35 through congested areas but opens back up to 50 mph; and our current speed is like one of those school speed zones, slowing down when children are present.

This really hit home for me was when we were DINKs (dual-income-no-kids) aka our first few years of marriage. It felt like everyone asked us so. many. times. when were going to have kids. We already had 300 kids of our own – 150 students each – and God had given us a vision and purpose in serving those kids until we were called to have kids of our own. Since having Serafina, I don’t know how parents teach full-time! We were able to give our students our full attention and efforts which allowed us to witness in ways we never thought possible.

I sincerely believe God doesn’t want us rushing through life. When we rush, we risk missing out on seeing Him work in and through us. click to tweet

Seeing this in my own life – and being thankful that I heeded His guidance to not make “the next step” into an idol – I wanted to encourage my closest friends to do so as well. I was not trying to force my own life’s timing on them but rather to be in the moment and enjoy the season that they were in at the time (whether they were dating, engaged, married, or wanting another child). God gives us wisdom through our experiences and we have a responsibility to share this whether it’s in a friendship** or formally in the context of a mentor relationship.

Most of us are over the speed limit and some of us won’t make changes until we get a ticket aka really get ourselves into trouble. How many warnings will it take before you slow down and make some changes? What can you do to get back within a reasonable speed rather than always feeling like you’re about to careen off the road at the next tight turn? For us, it meant figuring out how to live off of one income so I could stay home with Serafina.

Or maybe you’re tailgating and think the speed limit should be higher, that you should get to move on the to next phase now instead of continuing to wait. Trusting God’s timing and infinite wisdom rather than pushing the envelope requires a shift in our attitude toward what He has us to do in the here and now rather than what we want to be doing in the future. He does fulfill the desires of our heart…but in His timing, not ours.

Jesus tells us to not worry about our lives and Paul encourages us to not be anxious about anything…why then would we worry about the next stage of our lives? Check your speed – and your attitude toward the speed your life is currently at – and enjoy what God has for you. He won’t disappoint you. click to tweet

Thank you for reading; I hope this was an encouraging reminder to be in His presence and live in His timing. I’d love for you to share your thoughts in the comments below or contact me.

In Him, Rachel

*As Christians, we are called to always be ready because we don’t know when our life is over or when Jesus will come back. That is living with a sense of holy urgency (Matthew 24:42).

**Even the best of intentions get misconstrued and in encouraging a close friend to “watch her speed,” she eventually decided our friendship was not something she wanted to continue to invest in.

Shared over at A Mama’s Story’s Mama Moments Mondays Link-Up for the week of January 6th, 2014

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#31Days: Recap our visit to the Veterans Museum

October 25, 2013 by Rachel Zupke 1 Comment

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My Grandpa Oakes sets aside newspaper articles and gives me a manila envelope full of gems about education, politics, and other important things about twice a month. Since we get a newspaper that he doesn’t receive (he gets the Seattle Times and Wall Street Journal and we get the Everett Herald), I thought I should be on the lookout for things he might like to read. When I came across an article about the Seattle Veterans Museum that recently moved to the Everett VFW post, I knew I needed to pop it in the mail. The VFW post happens to be on Oakes Ave so it was a perfect outing for us.

He and my grandma came up today so Grandpa and I could go to the museum. Seeing as it’s housed in extra space at the VFW, we didn’t anticipate being gone that long but I was grateful my grandma was willing to stay home so Serafina could keep napping.

It was really cool. Yeah, the space was about the size of our living/dining room area but there was a lot of really cool stuff.

And the stories. Oh, the stories.

The volunteer staffing the museum, John Chapman, is a Vietnam vet. He told us some stories as we looked around at the items that have been donated by vets over the years. The Seattle Veterans Museum has been around for about 10 years but they lost their space down in the city and the Everett VFW graciously offered them space up here (way to go, Everett!). One of the stories he told was about being in the 101st Airborne and the chant they’d say every time they did a jump. Their commander would say, “What falls from the sky?” To which they would reply, “Airborne and death!” Okay, sorta morbid, but it was war. On their last jump – which was a night flight – they repeated the chant and then their commander told them the actual response they should have to his question: “bird sh** and fools!” Oh, boys at war…

Grandpa also took his turn telling his brother’s Iwo Jima story* as well as a few tales of his own, including one about Army guys trading ice cream for pairs of Marine pants (apparently Army pants were ridiculous and they were jealous of the ones the Marines got to wear).

These are just a few highlights of the artifacts they have at the museum…

There was a frame full of patches from different branches of each service as well as an original copy of a newspaper front page from the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII. There was also a manually operated siren to warn of impending chemical warfare strikes. Produced for WWI, that was a bit terrifying to think about.

I was most enamored with the uniforms. Down to the button, each service member’s uniform had incredible attention to detail. The bottom left photo is of Grandpa’s hands on the utility shirt identical to what he wore in Korea. He told John about how he had found “an outfit” down in California that was making exact reproductions for $200 and he’d someday save up for them. Maybe a Christmas present? ;)

There were many other amazing things but something that caught me as we were leaving was this bracelet, especially the tag that went with it.

“Mrs. Ward came and visited. Left her son’s bracelet.” Dated 11/5/2011.

Mrs. Ward’s son was 19 when he was killed in action. This bracelet reads, “USMC KIA 8/17/90-2/21/10.” He was born 6 years after me and died 3 years ago. I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to lose a child right as their life was about to begin. And Mrs. Ward thought it important enough to share this small momento with the Veterans Museum. Perhaps it was because she didn’t want the daily reminder of him on her wrist – she probably didn’t need it – but perhaps it was because this way every time someone saw it, they would think of her son and the sacrifice he made. Thank you, Mrs. Ward. And please thank your son for us.

*His brother enlisted at age 17, was in the Marines 17 months, and was on Iwo Jima 17 days. Crazy!

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Hi! I'm glad you're here!

An abundance of hand-me-downs (and how we organize them)

Get Outside!

Prayers for New Babies

Five Minute Friday: See

Check your speed – being content in every season

#31Days: Recap our visit to the Veterans Museum

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